The U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento did not want the protesters to have a jury trial. After hauling the five into court on a charge of entering the base for an unlawful purpose – a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison, a year of supervised release and a $5,000 fine, or five years on probation – the office argued that the crime is not serious, and thus not legally worthy of a jury trial.

This is a big deal folks. As an anti-war protester in the late 60's and early 70's, I can tell you from personal experience that the government uses minor offenses as a deterrent to 1st amendment exercise. They will then set up assembly line judicial proceedings. Their goal is to disrupt your protests by arresting you, not punishing you, and as such, the arrest becomes the deterrent. Jury trials stood in the way of this, making convictions pretty unlikely in some cases. A conviction for a lesser crime can still be a detriment to security clearances for a job in the private sector, or prevent you from obtaining a concealed weapons permit...etc